Appreciating Dove’s message, and also remembering that calling attention to one area that needs improvement doesn’t make up for the dismal reality of another.

One of the most important reasons to invite those dreams back into your life is their role in warning of illness and sickness. The accounts of this phenomenon have been documented for thousands of years. Aristotle wrote that the “beginnings of diseases and other distempers which are about to visit the body… must be more evident in the sleeping than the waking state.” Known as prodromal dreams, these warnings come insistently and with increasing nightmarish levels of intensity when not paid attention to. It’s as if the body is saying “Listen up!”

During a conversation with a friend the other night about her breakup, we eventually drifted over to this notion of guilt, and how much we all put on ourselves – in relationship, in our work, with our food and exercise. A lot of guilt around not being or doing what we should be doing. Take a quick peek around you. Things that are revered in our culture? Efficiency, unwavering commitment, strong work ethic, being “on”, level-headedness, being overwhelmingly well-researched, neatness.

I’m currently in cleansing mode thanks to the folks over at Dr. Natura, who sent me one of their colon cleansing kits to try out. Yep, I’ve done a lot of cleanses over the years, boxed and otherwise, including the extreme drinking 3/4 cup of olive oil (Several times. Makes me want to vomit just thinking about it). And I gotta admit, extreme cleansing isn’t for me anymore. My body doesn’t even do well if I completely cut out animal foods in order to cleanse.

I think science is good. Great, even. I appreciate knowing that I shouldn’t eat moldy things due to science telling me that (though I guess my taste buds would’ve also told me that eventually). It’s pretty cool I can fly across big pools of water and post things to blogs thanks to science. I like the fact that my mom is still around because of bypass surgery. But I also like the fact that I have no real control over life or death, that a person with cancer who is given six months to live “survives” another 30 years, or that someone halfway across the world feels my presence the exact moment I think of them. Just sayin’.

Health and life articles around the web actually worth reading.

On Saturday, next to a lake filling quickly to its edges with rain, I hiked with someone I love, someone I haven’t seen in months, and someone I had to give up. We had seen each other for a quick tea about a month after we broke up, but in hindsight, neither of us was really ready then. But over emails the past several weeks, we had decided we’d meet in September, more toward the end, somewhere in the middle of our two towns. Instead, as I was having trouble re-acclimating to my post-Burning Man world, and he had been many times before, I asked if we could meet earlier. Even though it was last minute, he agreed to come.